The number of people turned away or detained at Texas ports — what
the Department of Homeland Security calls “inadmissibles” — increased by
about 25 percent during the government’s 2014 fiscal year, according to
statistics. Most were denied entry after presenting false or stolen
documents.

Customs and Border Protection agents working the Laredo field office,
which includes the ports from Del Rio to Brownsville, found about
39,000 would-be crossers inadmissible, up from about 31,800 during the
2013 fiscal year. The El Paso field office, which extends from the Big
Bend area to El Paso and through New Mexico, reported about 10,170
inadmissibles, up from the previous year’s 7,855.

Illegal crossers caught between the ports of entry have a slight
chance at staying in the country by claiming asylum. But those caught
presenting false documents, or trying to use someone else's, at a port
might never be able to gain legal access to the country, even through
marriage or sponsorship, said Dan Kowalski, an immigration attorney and
editor of Bender’s Immigration Bulletin, an immigration newsletter.

“You could almost say it’s a permanent bar,” he said.

A person banned for presenting false papers must acquire a waiver for readmission into the country, which Kowalski said is an uphill battle.

When apprehensions of immigrants sneaking across the border drop, CBP
officials often claim that indicates fewer people are attempting
illegal entry. But immigration officials said the inverse — that the
increase in inadmissibles reflects more people faking their way through —
isn't necessarily true. It means that CBP officers are getting better
at detecting false documents, they say.

“We’re just doing a better job; they just get better at what they
do,” said Frank Longoria, the Laredo field office’s acting assistant
director for field operations. “That’s the way we would like to look at
it.”

“With the new technology and biometrics, we are seeing fewer
counterfeits, but there are still lots of people trying to be
impostors,” said Roger Maier, a CBP spokesman in El Paso. “A lot of it
comes down to officer expertise and training. They are trained on what
to look for regarding certain facial features that are consistent
throughout your life.”

The increase in attempts to fool trained customs agents could be a
result of increased manpower on the country’s southern border that has
made it harder for people to sneak across the Rio Grande. Since 2001,
the number of Border Patrol agents on the southwest border has doubled
to about 18,100. Over the summer, state officials deployed hundreds of
Texas Department of Public Safety officers and Texas National Guard
units in response to the massive influx of undocumented immigrants from
Central America.

Kowalski said the buildup could be a reason for the increase at the
ports, but he also said the statistics should be viewed with some
skepticism.

“It’s also possible that it’s due to differences in record keeping,”
Kowalski said. “Before a certain date, the agents in the field didn’t
keep very detailed records or mark everything down, so the numbers
appeared to be low even though they came across a lot of people. We’ll
never know. I don’t trust CBP’s numbers about anything.”

For years, the Obama administration has been accused of inflating
statistics to appear tough on illegal immigration. In October, the
administration touted another record-breaking total for deportations,
saying more than 438,000 people were deported in 2013. Numbers USA, a
grassroots organization that advocates for limits on immigration levels,
said in 2013 that the administration had inflated deportation
statistics by more than 100,000 by “counting certain ‘returns’ as
‘removals’ in order to artificially inflate the numbers and create a
'record level' of deportations.”

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